Written:Written in April 1904Published:Published, with alterations, in leaflet form in April 1904.

      Published according to the manuscript.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      publisher??,pubdate??,

      Moscow,Volume 7,

      pages199-202.Translated:Fineberg AbrahamTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2002).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Comradeworkers! May Day is coming, the day when the workers of all
      lands celebrate Their awakening to a class- conscious life, their
      solidarity in the struggle against all coercion and oppression of man
      by man, the struggle to free the toiling millions from hunger,
      poverty, and humiliation. Two worlds stand facing each other in this
      great struggle:
      the world of capital and the world of labour, the world of
      exploitation and slavery and the world of brotherhood and freedom.

Onone side stand the handful of rich blood-suckers. They have seized
      the factories and mills, the tools and machinery, have turned millions
      of acres of land and mountains of money into their private
      property. They have made the government and the army their servants,
      faithful watchdogs of the wealth they have amassed.

Onthe other side stand the millions of the disinherited. They are
      forced to beg the moneybags for permission to work for them. By their
      labour they create all wealth; yet all their lives long they have to
      struggle for a crust of bread, beg for work as for charity, sap their
      strength and health by back-breaking toil, and starve in hovels in the
      villages or in the cellars and garrets of the big cities.

Butnow these disinherited toilers have declared war on the moneybags
      and exploiters. The workers of all lands are fighting to free labour
      from wage slavery, from poverty and want. They are fighting for a
      system of society where the wealth created by the common labour will
      go to benefit, not a handful of rich men, but all those who work. They
      want to make the land and the factories, mills, and machinesthe common property of all toilers. They want to do away with the
      division into rich and poor, want the fruits of labour to go to the
      labourers themselves, and all the achievements of the human mind, all
      improvements in ways of working, to improve the lot of the man who
      works, and not serve as a means of oppressing him.

Thegreat struggle of labour against capital has cost the workers of
      all countries immense sacrifices. They have shed rivers of blood in
      behalf of their right to a better life and real freedom. Those who
      fight for the workers’ cause are subjected by the governments to
      untold persecution. But in spite of all persecution the solidarity of
      the workers of the world is growing and gaining in strength. The
      workers are uniting more and more closely in socialist parties, the
      supporters of those parties are mounting into millions and are
      advancing steadily, step by step, towards complete victory over the
      class of capitalist exploiters.

TheRussian proletariat, too, has awakened to a new life. It too
      has joined this great struggle. Gone are the days when our
      worker slaved submissively, seeing no escape from his state of
      bondage, no glimmer of light in his bitter life. Socialism has
      shown him the way out, and thousands upon thousands of fighters
      have thronged to the red banner, as to a guiding star. Strikes
      have shown the workers the power of unity, have taught them to
      fight back, have shown how formidable to capital organised
      labour can be. The workers have seen that it is off their labour
      that the capitalists and the government live and get fat. The
      workers have been fired with the spirit of united struggle, with
      the aspiration for freedom and for socialism. The workers have
      realised what a dark and evil force tbe tsarist autocracy
      is. The work ers need freedom for their struggle, but the
      tsarist govern ment binds them hand and foot. The workers need
      freedom of assembly, freedom to organise, freedom for newspapers
      and books, but the tsarist government crushes, with knout,
      prison and bayonet, every striving for freedom. The cry
      “Down with the autocracy!” has swept through the length
      and breadth of Russia, it has been sounded more and more often
      in the streets, at great mass meetings of the workers. Last
      summer tens of thousands of workers throughout the South of
      Russia rose up to fight for a better life, for freedomfrom police tyranny. The bourgeoisie and government trem bled at the
      sight of the formidable army of workers, which at one stroke brought
      to a standstill the entire industrial life of huge cities. Dozens of
      fighters for the workers’ cause fell beneath the bullets of the troops
      that tsarism sent against the internal enemy.

Butthere is no force that can vanquish this internal enemy, for the
      ruling classes and the government only live by its labour. There is no
      force on earth that could break the millions of workers, who are
      growing more and more class- conscious, more and more united and
      organised. Every defeat the workers sustain brings new fighters into
      the ranks, it awakens broader masses to new life and makes them
      prepare for fresh struggles.

Andthe events Russia is now passing through are such that this
      awakening of the worker masses is bound to be even more rapid
      and widespread, and we must strain every nerve to unite the
      ranks of the proletariat and prepare it for even more determined
      struggle. The war is making even the most backward sections of
      the proletariat take an interest in polit ical affairs and
      problems. The war is showing up ever more clearly and vividly
      the utter rottenness of the autocratic order, the utter
      criminality of the police and court gang that is ruling
      Russia. Our people are perishing from want and starvation at
      home—yet they have been dragged into a ruinous and
      senseless war for alien territories lying thou sands of miles
      away and inhabited by foreign races. Our people are ground down
      in political slavery—yet they have been dragged into a war
      for the enslavement of other peoples. Our people demand a change
      of political order at home— but it is sought to divert
      their attention by the thunder of guns at the other end of the
      world. But the tsarist govern ment has gone too far in its
      gamble, in its criminal squan dering of the nation’s wealth and
      young manhood, sent to die on the shores of the Pacific. Every
      war puts a strain on the people, and the difficult war against
      cultured and free Japan is a frightful strain upon Russia. And
      this strain comes at a time when the structure of police
      despotism has already begun to totter under the blows of the
      awakening proletariat. The war is laying bare all the weak spots
      of the government, the war is tearing off all false disguises,
      thewar is revealing all the inner rottenness; the war is making the
      preposterousness of the tsarist autocracy obvious to all and is
      showing everyone the death-agony of the old Russia, the Russia where
      the people are disfranchised, ignorant and cowed, the Russia that is
      still in serf bondage to the police government.

Theold Russia is dying. A free Russia is coming to take its
      place. The dark forces that guarded the tsarist autocracy are
      going under. But only the class-conscious and organised
      proletariat can deal them their death-blow. Only the class-
      conscious and organised proletariat can win real, not sham,
      freedom for the people. Only the class-conscious and organised
      proletariat can thwart every attempt to deceive the people, to
      curtail their rights, to make them a mere tool in the hands of
      the bourgeoisie.

Comradeworkers! Let us then prepare with redoubled energy for the
      decisive battle that is at hand! Let the ranks of the Social-Democrat
      proletarians close ever firmer! Let their word spread ever farther
      afield! Let campaigning for the workers’ demands be carried on ever
      more boldly! Let the celebration of May Day win thousands of new fight
      ers to our cause and swell our forces in the great struggle for the
      freedom of all the people, for the liberation of all who toil from the
      yoke of capital!

Longlive the eight-hour day!

Longlive international revolutionary Social-Democracy!

Downwith the criminal and plundering tsarist autocracy!